When you begin developing applications on your own for the first time, I would argue one of the first things that you do is build a portfolio websi...
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I'll keep my opinion simple. If a person isn't willing to invest themselves, how can they expect an employer to invest their money into them either?
In today's world you have to stand out. There's a 17 year old kid that got hired by a YouTuber I watch. Why did he hire the kid? Because he had a decent set of projects well-documented on github, and he had a website where everything could be presented to the employer easily in a way that makes sense to them (UX Design).
My point is I get tons of spam messages and emails, "hey will you please hire me?", and me asking for the link to their website. Oh, don't have one.
So a person who wants top create a website for me, doesn't have one for themselves..? Ya, no. Just doesn't make sense to me.
I would definitely agree if the type of work you're trying to get is creating portfolios for others, yes, you need something to show off yourself. I might argue that 17 year old kid's Github was more influential on getting the actual job. (Of course, I have no idea about the YouTube/kid I'm jut speculating.). But imagine a great portfolio...then his Github is a hot mess. Ehh, not so impressive.
I think my main argument is that portfolios don't typically even require many skills that a dev would need to make a larger application. API's, auth, things like that. For many years I maintained my own site but ultimately I have limited time and want to spend it on projects that are higher leverage for me. Maybe it's the same for others.
I think it's perspective as well. Since Im coming out of a digital marketing background I learned a few things most people don't. Even today, I made sure before my site was launched that I had a branding kit completed. As developers we live to code, I'd rather not be around people, it's not that I don't like them, I just prefer the company of my lappy or my PC (yes, they both have names) to people who, well let's be honest, are just interested in everything I'm not😂
My point tho, I've seen amazing developers create insanely amazing projects, and they all died, and the reason for every single one, "they just couldn't get it to take off". But the facts were, it was either a poor marketing strategy or a no marketing strategy that killed them.
Your portfolio is your elevator pitch, you bedazzle them, for UX you need to show you understand everything from ten beginning (market research) to the end (product launch and user testing), and how you adapted and controversial ideas or information were found in the middle.
A portfolio takes time, but you know who has a portfolio? So far from what I've seen, every person at Google😎🚀😉
Most of us invest 3 or 4 years already on getting a computer science degree. Even more for people with a master degree.
We are also investing a lot of time to get certifications. Fullstack developers get certifications in technical analysis, Agile, DevOps, security in software, testing, UI/UX (yes, even for fullstack developers!), etc... It's the same for ui/ux and frontend developers, even if for them it's usually less.
On top of that, we have to be up to date, read books, articles about IT... all in our free time.
So i think that there are other priorities compared to portfolios
I don't have a degree, but a lot of practice as a web developer, and I invested a lot of time in learning and research - and in building my portfolio website as well.
Hey, if you ever need any help, reach out. I just got my small site up, starting on my projects next, I have a few free ones I'm going to be working on. Anyways, the more the merrier. Cheers mate.
Here's the start (still under construction so he gentle) of my portfolio/CV site. 😊 baysia.dev
I fail to see where you have no time to build a portfolio🤷🏻♀️ I mean the whole reason I came back to development after teaching and running a digital marketing agency, is so I could do all of those things. And on top of all of thoae, I'm slowly creating a YouTube Channel, running my social media on 4 platforms, I do all of my own graphic design work right now, and I have a wife and a 4 year old I love dearly.
My apologies, but if you find reading about tech, sharing what you've learned with others, and spending every moment you can i your own personal playground. Mmmmm, perhaps this just wasn't the life for you. But me, Thats the reason I do it🥰😂
My thoughts on it are that building a portfolio website from scratch on your own by coding it not only helps you learn new things but also, it serves as a plus point to tell someone that "you" built that website completely on your own. Updating it regularly will surely keep you in toucb with latest trends.
Totally true. I maintained my own site for years. One built on Next.js, then one on Gatsby. Finally one with Redwood.js. At the same time, I've got way more complex things goin on in personal projects using the same frameworks, and other personal projects that I like to use to dabble in new tech/frameworks. For myself, I have limited time so I choose to maintain and update those projects instead of spending time on the 4th iteration of a personal site. I think coding in general helps you learn new things, so why prioritize portfolios?
I should just write another post on why it's not a waste of time! ha
Glad you took the comment positively and understood opinion 😀
It's never a waste of time, it can be a really great to showcase you skills and easy to share info about you instead of handing over pdfs and all.
I think if you're handing out PDF's...spending time to make your own site is very worth it. Of course you can always make it NOT a waste of time by dedicating yourself to incorporating challenging new features/frameswork/whatever. At the same time, I know many people with no personal sites. Some personal sites are just landing pages. I think with sites like that, it is probably more beneficial to spent time on other side projects, assuming you could actually show those off as well. If you can't show anything you've worked on....yeah you need a portfolio.
Ask all of a owners of portfolio websites out here siteinspire.com/websites?categorie.... I personally built my web-dev portfolio on Astro, you don’t even need to use any of frameworks, because it’s based on Markdown, lots of boilerplates to start your portfolio landing page as fast as possible
Astro.new has a pretty good selection of templates. Great for static sites. Just FYI if you still wanted to flex some react muscles or write some code.
Great post gives me a lot to think about.